This is pretty much the hallmark of antitrust/monopolistic behavior - apple watch (and airpods) are a significant contribution to Apple's bottom line - by restricting these functions under the guise of security or optimization, and offering them only via privileged abi, and by controlling a sizeable share of the smartphone market, they can effectively kill and stifle competition - even to devices that aren't under Apple's control which is a key case to understanding why this behavior is harmful. If Pebble can't make a functional product work for 40% of their addressable market, it may make their business model impossible.

It's impossible to argue that this isn't intentional and to make the case that this isn't impacting competition, innovation and consumer choice here.

Hopefully someone takes Apple to task over this. If it can be done on Android without jeopardizing the security or optimizations of the phone - it can be done on iOS.